Since April 15th, 2023, Sudan has been embroiled in a needless turmoil. This is as a result of how the conspicuous mêlée for the soul of the country has stood between the two protuberant security chiefs, the Army Chief, General Abdul Fatah Burhan and the Commander of the Rapid Support Forces, (RSF), Mohammed Hamdan Dagalo.
Recall that the two generals ousted the Omar Al-Bashir’s government in 2019 but had struggled to find common grounds to govern without anything concrete to show for it.
Things ultimately turned-out shoddier after the government indicated interest to integrate members of the Rapid Support Group into the nation’s security body. While the Army Chief, General Burhan saw it as a measure to gain supremacy, the commander of the Rapid Support Force, General Dagalo on the other hand saw it as a ploy to overwhelm his security outfit and render it pragmatically subservient.
Expressing his concern, the Secretary General of the United Nations, Antonio Guterres told reporters in Kenya that the fighting in Sudan needs to stop now, before more people die and the conflict becomes a regional one. Sad enough, the fighting in the country has resulted in the death of over 436 civilians and 2,175 others injured.
It is in the midst of this ill-fated catastrophe that many countries like Britain, United States, France, Germany, Italy, Russia, Sweden and Egypt amongst others have continued to evacuate their citizens back home to safety. Just like other countries of the world, Nigeria also evacuated its citizens after it became apparent that the war is yet to abate.
As soon as efforts commenced however, some Nigerians started accusing officials of the nation’s embassy of discrimination against the South East ethnic group. In a viral video, a group of Igbo ethnic stock allegedly claimed that the Nigerian authorities evacuated stranded Nigerians in the war-torn Sudan by state of origin and eventually left the Igbos behind.
Their Spokesman in the viral video who spoke in Igbo further claimed that they were asked to come down from the buses that conveyed other ethnic groups, an allegation subsequently debunked by authorities back home. First and foremost, however, we wish to condemn in totality the unnecessary fighting in Sudan which has claimed several lives since it started weeks back. More so, it has become glaring that the fighting in Sudan is necessitated by selfish reasons and fallacious misadventure to the detriment of its citizenry.
However, Nigeria’s government must be commended for always evacuating its citizens whenever the need arises around the countries of the world. These gestures have in most recent times indicated the value the present President Mohammad Buhari’s administration places on the lives of its citizens in diaspora.
Though this is the first time the issue of discrimination during such evacuations is springing up, these allegations call for thorough investigations by authority concerned. It should also be noted that anything short of this will lead to the polarization of this nation along ethnic lines which would be very detrimental to our corporate existence as an indivisible country. Beyond this, Nigerians must be cautioned against uttering unguarded statements without providing basic facts as this would not auger well for our collective interest as a nation.
